The objective of this project is to investigate which kinds of informal self-help approaches to smoking cessation are most successful. Two hundred former smokers and 200 recidivists will be interviewed concerning their strategies for quitting using detailed, structured interview questionnaires. These subjects are members of the Normative Aging Study, a longitudinal interdisciplinary study of 2,000 subjects which began in 1963. Also measured will be various subject characteristics such as age, strength of motivation for quitting, degree of addiction, and personality. Results will provide some of the first information on: (1) components of successful strategies used by former smokers who quit on their own; (2) differences in strategies between Former smokers and recidivists; (3) differences in personal and social-environmental characteristics between Former smokers and recidivists who used the same strategy; (4) differences in personal and socio-environmental characteristics between groups of Former smokers who used different strategies; and (5) comparisons of the relative importance for success in quitting of self-help strategies versus subject characteristics (such as age, personality, social supports, and strength of motivation to stop smoking).